<< Thunderous Ladies: it looks as if we've reached general agreement that these exist, but are rare and regarded as Odd. Fine. Rare and odd is no problem (sounds like PCs to me), it was Impossible (for no reason) that was giving me trouble.>>
I'd agree with you so far. However, IMO, a couple of questions remain, and tie in with your later comments about Orlanth seeming to become less a god of freedom and more a god of a particular type of rigid behaviour. While I suspect that this is, in fact, not the case, it is not an unreasonable conclusion to reach based on the small (and no doubt incomplete) amount we have heard.
Firstly, there remains the question of how exactly women are supposed to gain thunderous powers. Through an unusual hero cult or sub-cult of OT, I would imagine, but short of pestering Greg about it, it seems unlikely anyone on the Digest can provide an Official Answer.
Second, there remains the more general issue of how much HW will restrict certain powers (not necessarily just thunderous ones) to specific genders, which seems somewhat contrary to Orlanthi belief. Since the rules have not been finished yet AFAIK - and the Orlanthi culture pack certainly hasn't - it's difficult to provide a definitive answer to this one yet, either.
However, it would seem from Martin Laurie's post that access to thunderous powers is indeed restricted under the current, incomplete, version of the rules. Now, I'm not criticising the rules here, because they haven't been finished and maybe the thunderous ladies bit just hasn't been written yet, especially if they are intended for the Orlanthi culture pack. But there seem to be some worrying indications that there is no intention to write them, so it would be nice if anyone could confirm this one way or the other.
Martin's defence of HW was that women can still gain thunderous powers up to the second level of mastery, although I was unclear as to how easy this was compared to other powers (presumably there isn't a difference, but I'm not certain about that). Now, he's quite correct to say that this makes no real difference to PCs; judging from what I've heard it seems as if you'd want to quit a campaign when a your PCs reach the first level of mastery (which is apparently a rather more impressive acheivement than it sounds!) and start a new one, with maybe the occasional one-off for the older characters from then on. So banning Orlanthi women from access to third level thunder powers is hardly a big deal for your PCs!
But the fact remains that it just doesn't make much sense for such a restriction to be in place. Some people may well want to play 'high-power' campaigns, and there's always the question of powerful NPCs. For the Orlanthi to deny over half their population access to the primary powers of the very god that they're named after seems a bit peculiar!
Now, the Dara Happans restricting their best solar powers to men I can believe - they are supposed to be repressive after all! But the Orlanthi, as we all know, are freedom-loving and generally non-sexist. So logically, there must be a way for women to obtain third level thunderous powers, and so on up to however high it goes. And besides, the Digest has recently decreed that they exist, so obviously It Must Be So ;-)
Whether or not they've remembered this Gloranthan 'truth' in the HW rules and supplements remains to be seen. Its a minor point to be sure, since its pretty easy to ignore or work round in your own campaign, but I find it worrying more because of its implications than its direct impact.
Forward the grognardish Red Army!
Trotsky
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